Celebrating somebody else's holiday

Dec. 20, 2006

Written by

The Journal News

Every Thanksgiving, Esther Ventre makes a big pot of matzo-ball soup. For Ventre, who's "Italian through and through," the soup - dotted with her signature marble-size matzo balls - has become a holiday-dinner staple, not because she's Jewish, but because it somehow feels right.

Ventre is not alone. Many families adopt holiday-meal traditions that have nothing to do with their roots.

Mariann Raftery, who's Italian and Czech, always makes Greek sour-cream coffee cake and Southern sweet-potato pie. Colleen Kapklein, who grew up in Maryland, kicks off each new year with a pot of New Orleans-style black-eyed peas. And Katonah author Wendy Corsi Staub, who's Italian, is celebrating Hanukkah this year with a plate of Mexican-inspired latkes.

How does a bit of menu-tweaking become a family holiday tradition?

In Ventre's case, the matzo balls made their first appearance 30 years ago. Her father, who worked in a Bronx restaurant, brought the recipe home and taught it to her mother. Then Ventre gave it a try - and the family applauded.

But she didn't realize how much her children loved her matzo balls until the Thanksgiving she decided not to make them. "I bought some filled pasta for soup, and when we sat down they said, 'Where's the matzo balls?' I said, 'Gee, I thought I'd try something different. Maybe you don't really care for them,' '' recalls Ventre, who lives in Orangeburg. "That night I heard it up and down and around, and since then, that's what I make and everybody's happy. I call it a labor of love.''

Anne Prestamo knows the feeling. For more than 20 years, the Yonkers grandmother - who's also Italian - has been celebrating Christmas Eve with empanada, an elaborate meat-filled pie that she learned to make from her Spanish-born mother-in-law, Abelina.

"She sat with me the first year I made it, and (my husband, Angelo) was just so delighted I was learning how to make it,'' she says. "After a number of years, my daughter-in-law decided she wanted to do it because my son loves it.''

Last Christmas, the Prestamos ate four empanadas, two made by Anne and two created by her Jewish daughter-in-law, Leslie, who lives in Mahopac.

"She loves to make it and now her family looks forward to it,'' says Prestamo. "The grandchildren love it.''

Children also play a big part in Colleen Kapklein's holiday celebration.

Kapklein, who lives in Ardsley with her husband, Matt, and children Casey and Jamie, has spent the past 15 years celebrating New Year's Eve with college friends and a big pot of Hoppin' John. She started making the traditionally Southern dish, she explains, when she read in the "Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant" cookbook that black-eyed peas bring good luck if they're eaten for New Year's.

Now the dish - seasoned with onions, garlic, tamari, allspice and cayenne pepper - has become a Kapklein family tradition.

"It's especially meaningful to us, I think, because it's what we've chosen and it's a bond with this other family,'' says Kapklein. "For kids and for grown-ups, just knowing something special is coming for the holiday is really at the heart of the celebration.''

For Katonah author Wendy Corsi Staub, holiday celebrations are more than an excuse to try new recipes - they're cross-cultural dining adventures.

Staub, who's Italian-American, celebrates Christmas and Hanukkah with her husband, Mark, and their two sons, Morgan and Brody. Although she's famous for dishes like sausage orchiette (which she learned to make from her mother) and Italian chocolate clove cookies (which she learned from her grandmother), Staub also makes food that reflects Jewish traditions - like brisket, noodle pudding and mushroom-barley soup.

This year, the Staubs' Hanukkah celebration will include a "latke cook-off" at a relative's house in Connecticut.

"My kids were saying we should make them shaped like Christmas trees because everybody in the family is intermarried. You have to come up with a challenging, different latke recipe,'' she says. "So what I think I'm going to do is red and green peppers and scallions minced really small. It will be a Mexican-type thing with sour cream, and instead of applesauce I thought I would do guacamole. So it would be red and green Christmas latkes.''

But even when Christmas and Hanukkah are over, Lee Ellman is still in the holiday spirit: Every January, he celebrates the new year at the Yonkers Planning Bureau with a huge pot of red beans and rice.

"I do it every year and it's gotta be six months before, three months before, people start asking me, 'You're gonna do chili again?' " says Ellman, the city's director of planning.

As he's quick to point out, red beans and rice taste nothing like chili. And they've got a meaning all their own.

"I was reading a cookbook on New Orleans cooking,'' says Ellman, "and they mentioned it was supposed to be good luck for New Year's to have red beans and rice, and that Louis Armstrong used to sign his letters, 'Red beans and ricely yours from Louis Armstrong.' ''

About 10 years ago, he brought the good-luck charm to work.

"We have a little stove in the office so I can keep the red beans and rice hot,'' he says. "I put on my tabasco tie and my hot-pepper apron and do a little end-of-the-season and get back to the normal grind.''

Ellman, who lives in Yonkers, also celebrates New Year's with his wife, Rita Tomkins, and their two children with a pot of Hoppin' John. "I have no ties whatsoever to New Orleans, no ties whatsoever to the South,'' he says. "Hoppin' John and red beans and rice happen to be Southern African-American food primarily, and we were very vegetarian for a while.''

But Ellman sees no need for apologies - even if his signature holiday dishes bear no connection to his own cultural heritage.

"We're not of these traditions, but what the hell,'' he says with a laugh. "That's what we like.''

Set shredded potatoes in colander over bowl and stir occasionally to drain liquid, about 10 minutes. Move potatoes to large bowl and combine well with eggs, matzo meal, cumin, Adobo, pepper, and salt to taste (I use a generous amount, at least 2 teaspoons). Stir in onion, scallion and peppers.

Line cookie sheet with paper towels, set aside. Heat about 1/3 -inch oil in bottom of heavy skillet. When hot enough to sizzle, scoop potato mixture into slotted spoon, gently press out moisture using second spoon, and drop into oil. Flatten and fry until golden brown, flip and repeat.

Transfer latkes onto cookie sheet and cover with another layer of paper towels to soak up oil. Salt again to taste. Move to second cookie sheet and keep warm in oven as you fry remainder of batch. Serve immediately with garnishes.

Lee Ellman's New Year's Red Beans

Ellman describes this as a "sloppy fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of recipe," since he's combined several recipes into one. "You have to taste as you go.''

1 pound small red beans, dry

1 ham hock, smoked

2 green bell peppers, chopped

2 medium onions, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large bay leaf

1 cup tomato ketchup

1/2 teaspoon thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Several tablespoons hot sauce to taste (Crystal or Frank's preferred)

Pick over, rinse and soak beans overnight, as per package directions.

Rinse beans and add water to cover. Bring to boil, meanwhile chopping vegetables and adding other items as they are ready. Add salt and pepper.

Reduce to slow simmer and leave on all day (three to four hours at least). Add water as needed to keep beans from sticking and to make sauce.

As beans become soft, mash a couple of spoonfuls to create the sauce. Taste for seasonings, remove bay leaf and add hot sauce to taste. (The beans should have a little zing but not be spiced like a chili - leave that for the individual diner.)

Chop up ham hock if you like or put aside.

Serve beans over hot white rice with a selection of hot sauces on the side.

Yield: serves 6 for dinner or 8-plus as a side dish ("Not that I know anyone who doesn't just eat this as dinner!'' says Ellman.)

Anne Prestamo's Empanada

Prestamo leaned how to make empanadas from her mother-in-law, Abelina, who was born in Galicia, Spain.

1 pound bacon, cut into small pieces

1 pound veal (for stew), cut into small pieces

4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into small pieces

Salt and pepper

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon dried parsley

1 teaspoon dried onion flakes

2 tablespoons red wine

1 packet Goya Sazón con azafón or about 1/2 teaspoon saffron

1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce

2 pounds sweet Italian sausage (taken out of casing), crumbled

2 pounds chorizo, sliced into thin rounds

3 large green peppers, sliced

2 medium onions, sliced

Egg yolks, beaten

4 pounds bread dough (bought at Italian bakery or make your own)

Fry bacon in Dutch oven until almost crisp. Drain on paper towel and place in large bowl.

In bacon fat, lightly brown veal and chicken thighs in batches. Season with salt and pepper, garlic, parsley, onion flakes and wine.

Remove with slotted spoon, add to bacon.

In same fat (add a little oil if too dry), fry peppers and onions. Cover the last two minutes to soften.